Assessment Round 5 - Cards for the Prosperity expansionA note to my assessment first: I have mocked up all cards that didn't have an image and then evaluated them twice on two separated days and afterwards averaged the outcomes. For each criterion as listed 7 days ago, a score from 1-5 was given. Then I picked the top 5 cards and evaluated them again side by side. With this approach I noticed that Treasures scored a bit lower for the “Fun” aspect; I guess this is almost by nature, as it is more difficult to design an exciting only-Treasure card (a Hybrid wouldn’t fit well to Prosperity) than a powerful Action card. On the other hand, it is easier to design a Treasure that looks “Prosperity-like”.
Now to the individual cards:
Minister by majiponiMinistercost $5 - Treasure
+$2
+2 Buys
You may put your deck
into your discard pile.
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When you buy this, play it.
Minister is a Treasure that immediately reminded me of the Chancellor/Woodcutter variants submitted by LastFootnote and silverspawn for the first round of this contests, i.e. Fan-made cards for the Base set, and more so even because of its name. Looking a bit closer, it is comparable in function and strength with Spices from Renaissance. The interesting part is the on-buy effect, which is quite unique (some Night cards allow this indirectly), but aside of Mint, the an on-buy effect looks rather like a Hinterlands mechanic. In the case of Minister, this mechanic pushes the current Buy phase with 2 extra buys and $2. This is helpful for getting lots of cheap cards when needed, e.g. Peddlers and later in the game it threatens a sudden ending by 3-piling. It looks versatile and balanced.
Shipping Lane by spinefluShipping Lane• $3 • Action
+1 Buy
You may gain a Copper to your hand.
If you do, cards cost $1 less per Coin
token on the Trade Route mat.
-
Setup: Add a Coin token to each
Victory Supply pile; move that token
to the Trade Route mat when a card
is gained from the pile.
Shipping Lane extends the Trade Route mechanic, i.e. the first gain of a Victory card from any such pile in a Kingdom increases the strength of the card for all players. While Trade Route allows some trashing, Shipping Lane junks the player for the desired effect. Despite Kingdoms with attractive Victory cards, this may happen relatively late in the game. Then suddenly it can become interesting, although I expect it to be slow in most cases. Without efficient trashing available, I would prefer Trade Route because of its trashing ability, whereas with strong trashing, Shipping Lane could be the better choice. The card looks innovative as it uses a unique mechanic in a different way without complicating it. It can be fun to have it in certain Kingdoms, and to have an impact late in the game.
Royal Escort by silverspawnRoyal Escort$7 – Action
+4 Cards
You may discard a Province, for +2 VP.
Royal Escort is an expensive card that provides VPs, two of the criteria for a typical Prosperity card. In addition, it fills a gap by providing strong draw, and thus looks like an innovative addition to Prosperity. To come to full power is not easy to achieve, when compared to other expensive Prosperity cards, such as Goons and King’s Court. This however makes sense since the benefit can be immense. While I would prefer those official cards for a first purchase of a high-cost card, I would certainly buy Royal Escort, and if it is just for its drawing capacity. Some people criticized that infinite loops are possible as there is no mechanic towards ending the game (e.g. +Buy, trashing, gaining). However, this is theoretically also possible with Monument (though at least it encourages buying cards by giving +$2), a much cheaper card which needs much less support. Overall, an innovative Prosperity-like card that is likely useful and fun to play with.
Quicksilver by NoMoreFunQuicksilverTreasure - $6
Worth $1
At the start of clean up, exchange
a treasure you would discard from
play for a treasure costing up to
$6 more than it.
The first thing I thought was “nice name, but whoa what is that?”.
Quicksilver is an expensive Treasure that cares for Treasures and in that sense has the features of a typical Prosperity card. It offers a competitive Big Money strategy. Players going this route, want to hit $6 as fast as possible to buy their first Quicksilver, e.g. by opening with Silver and/or a strong terminal draw if possible. Once in deck, Quicksilver looks like a Money-Rat to me. It transforms Copper to more Quicksilver, Silver and Quicksilver to Platinum (if available). It can even exchange itself (not only other copies) for Platinum. I think it is very strong and players favoring Big-Money games would certainly like it. However, in my opinion it would be better balanced if it has some restrictions, e.g. exchanging Treasures from hand.
Royal Foundries by Xen3kRoyal Foundries $7 – Action
+1 Action
Discard a card. Gain a card to your
hand costing less than it. If you
would gain a card costing more
than this, instead trash this to gain
that card to your hand.
Royal Foundries is an expensive Action card that functions as a Gainer in an innovative way and thus looks like a Prosperity card. One problem is that there are already two Prosperity cards with exactly the same cost, i.e. Expand and Forge, which have a similar function. I think Royal Foundries is quite tricky to play. It’s best use is probably to get an early Province (or Peddler), maybe Gold before that, and then gain all the nice Engine pieces, including more Royal Foundries. King’s Courting it could get wild, but that is the problem with King’s Court and not Royal Foundries. The fact that it is non-terminal even does not interfere with building and running a powerful engine and thus Royal Foundries is helpful at all stages of the game. Even when going for Provinces, it can be used for a self-sacrifice to get a final edge. The card looks interesting and fun to play with. Is it balanced? No idea, but for play testing, I would certainly start exactly with this version.
Racecourse by AquilaRacecourseAction, $6 cost
+3 Cards
You may trash a card from your hand.
If you do, remove the token from its
pile (if it's there) for +1VP per $1 the
trashed card costs.
-
Setup: put a coin token on each supply pile.
Racecourse is an expensive Smithy combined with a trashing ability that can provide VP tokens if the trashed card is the first of the respective Supply pile. This uses an innovative variant of the Trade Route mechanic; the instructions are clear by the way. Racecourse lives up for its name as it sets up a race for players to trash the first copy of a card from any Supply pile. One problem with this are Estates, which are the preferred target that give a considerable VP swing. It also looks like this could end up in a trash-orgy, as for example trashing a Peddler first, or just a Province, would give a whopping 8 VP that do not even clog the deck. Racecourse will likely often split a game in two parts. First, players try to gain as many different cards of value as possible and to trash them before their opponents do. Once that dust has settled, in the second step, players will build a regular engine with the help of the cards that survived the first phase. This could be fun for a few games, but could be too centralising in the long run. Giving +1 VP for 2$ of the cost (like Bishop does) could be a less radical option to consider; or even just +1 VP no matter what the card costs. Another, independent possibility is to exclude the basic Victory piles.
Heir by D782802859 Heir$3 - Action
+2 Actions
Reveal the top three cards
of your deck. Add the cards
that cost $5 or more to your
hand and put the rest back
in any order.
Heir is a cheap Action card that looks for expensive cards in the deck. It adds a nice and unused aspect to the themes of Prosperity. It functionally resembles a reverse Seer of Renaissance; easy to get, but more difficult to power it up. With strong trashing and/or deck inspection it could easily become a centre piece of engines. Looks like a fun card, helpful in a lot of Kingdoms and a great potential to shine. It is even helpful late in the game to fish all the expensive Victory cards before a Smithy or a second Heir draws some useful cards. Given its low cost I wonder whether just +1 Action would be better for balancing.
Bellows by anordinarymanBellows Treasure - $4
$1
+1 Card
Trash a card from your hand.
Discard one or more cards to
gain a Treasure costing exactly
$1 more per card discarded.
Bellows is another Treasure with a Mine-type ability where trashing and Treasure gaining are separated. In this way, it thematically fits to Prosperity. My first impression was that this is a variant of Jack of all Trades of Hinterlands, with all the different abilities it has. It is a Copper that draws a card, which is helpful whatever that card is (allowing either playing, discarding for $, or trashing it). The mandatory trashing is interesting. Early on it is a welcome ability, but later on it can limit the usefulness of Bellows, especially since it interferes with getting the benefit from discarding. On the other hand, if a player does not want to use Bellows for a Big Money deck, they can use it for some trashing and can quite easily avoid gaining more Treasures by just discarding the required minimum of one card. A Big Money player on the other hand has to discard quite a lot for gaining valuable Treasures. I am not sure whether that was the intention, but I think it is a bit too weak for a competitive Big Money strategy. Gaining the Treasure to hand could be an attractive alternative, maybe for a cost of $5.
Patrimony by grepPatrimony$4 - Treasure
$1
You may discard a Victory card
for +$2 and +1VP
Patrimony is a cheap Treasure that relies on Victory cards for its effect, i.e. to turn itself into a VP producing Gold. VP gaining looks a bit suspicious at first glance, though not spending the $3 would look quite crazy. Functionally, Patrimony is similar to Shepherd/Pasture from Nocturne, with the notable difference that Patrimony can permanently score VPs throughout the game. Since most games start with Estates, this will, almost risk-free, lead to a push towards high payload accompanied with VP scoring. It is certainly interesting and relatively unique and fits to Prosperity, but it appears to be too easy to make it more powerful than even Plunder, a $5 cost bottom card of a split pile from Empires.
Heirloom Jewelry by LibraryAdventurerHeirloom Jewelry$6 - Treasure
+$2
You may discard 2 cards for +$2.
This turn when you play a Gold,
+1 Card.
Heirloom Jewelry is an expensive Treasure that specifically interacts with another Treasure and thus thematically fits to Prosperity. Interestingly, to achieve the full benefit, it requires Gold, which has exactly the same cost and thus compete which Heirloom Jewelry. On the other hand, it should be fairly easy to get at least $3 out of Heirloom Jewelry, e.g. by discarding a Copper and an Estate. Without fast trashing, I would prefer this over Gold, but so would I for most cards costing $6 or and even $5. For a maximum effect, a player needs several Golds and Heirloom Jewelries, and even then, slimming the deck to play them more often interferes with the discarding part, which is not a bad thing balance-wise. In this respect, the +1 Card is also interesting, since it can provide fodder for the next Heirloom Jewelry or, if a Treasure was drawn, can be played immediately, at the risk of dead drawing a key Action card. In summary, it looks like an interesting concept that provides two possibilities to upgrade the card to a Gold+ without getting too crazy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------As I have mentioned at the beginning, I evaluated the cards 2-3 times. I always ended up with
Royal Escort and
Heir as the top 2 cards. Royal Escort scored a bit higher for “Prosperity like” as it is an expensive card that provides a new and innovative way for VP scoring, though Heir scored high for this criterion too. Heir scored better for “Balance”, not necessarily because I know that it is better balanced, but because Royal Escort has the potential problem of infinite VP scoring. For Heir it is difficult to figure out without play testing whether it is overpowered as is, but if there is a problem it could be easily nerfed. Both cards scored about equally well for the “Fun to play” part and both would be a welcome addition to Prosperity and exciting to have in other Kingdoms as well. Finally, both cards have an “innovative concept”, with a tiny edge towards Royal Escort. Among the other cards, there were three that followed the leading pack relatively close. I will name one of them, a Treasure.
My final decision:
Runner-ups:3rd: Heirloom Jewelry by LibraryAdventurer2nd: Heir by D782802859Winner: Royal Escort by silverspawnCongratulations to silverspawn and the runner-ups and thank you all for participating and submitting interesting cards for this contest.
